Pirate Bay prosecutors get jiggy with charge sheet - again

Prosecutors in the entertainment industry versus The Pirate Bay trial have made further amendments to the charge sheet in the hope of nailing a conviction against the defendants.

According to Swedish online news service The Local, prosecutors have once again adjusted the language in the indictment.

It requested that the following sentence describing the alleged crimes committed by The Pirate Bay be erased from the charge sheet in the district court in Stockholm: “All components are necessary for users of the service are able to share files with one another.”

Additionally, prosecutors representing the likes of MGM, Sony and other big players in the entertainment biz world had the phrase “provide the ability to others to upload torrent files to the service” changed to “provide the ability to others to upload and store torrent files to the service”.

It’s understood that the move was made to help prosecutors secure a conviction against Peter Sunde, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, four of the key men behind the infamous torrent tracker site. If found guilty of the charges, the co-founders face up to two years in prison and fines of up to $180,000.

This is the latest adjustment. Just last week Håkan Roswall, who is chief prosecutor in the trial, dramatically dropped all charges of copyright infringement against The Pirate Bay.

Meanwhile, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's CEO John Kennedy took to the stand today to dispute claims that Google offered easily obtainable showbiz goodies in the same way as The Pirate Bay tracker did.

“We talk to Google all the time about preventing piracy. If you go to Google and type in Coldplay you get 40 million results - press stories, legal Coldplay music, review, appraisals of concerts/records," said Kennedy, according to TorrentFreak.

"If you go to Pirate Bay you will get less than 1000 results, all of which give you access to illegal music or videos. Unfortunately The Pirate Bay does what it says in its description and its main aim is to make available unauthorised material. It filters fake material, it authorises, it induces.”

He said the IFPI had spent around £75m on its global fight against piracy. Kennedy, who has headed at IPFI since 1996, also admitted that he only understood BitTorrent technology in "very vague terms."

The case continues and is expected to conclude next Monday, 2 March. ®